Innovative Minds Prize Awarded at UCLA

Vascular Access Systems and SMRT Therapeutics were the winners, among twenty-two teams of UCLA researchers at the UCLA Business of Science Center Venture Team Competition, competing for Perkins Coie's $20,000 Innovative Minds prize. The UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute matched Perkins Coie's $20,000 prize and the two winning projects were selected based on their need in the market and how well the solutions they provided met that need.

The competition was created to identify and fund promising UCLA technologies and provide practical business experience to UCLA students and Michael Wise and George Colindres were among the judges.

Both teams plan on utilizing the funds for the next steps of marketing their research. The Vascular Access Systems team will develop its venture with the objective of selling licensing rights for the device to research companies. SMRT Therapeutics will try to test the effectiveness of its drug in disease treatment and prevention. Both teams will present their projects in front of potential investors at a conference hosted by the Southern California Biomedical Council next month.